Us
by Anlgsp
Summary: Lily finds an old box of all things Rufus...take a walk down memory lane with her.


**To say this was not on my to-do list for the day would be an understatement. Actually it hasn't been on my to-do list for quite a while. Blame it on Sunday blues, blame it on PMS, blame it on the love-is-in-the-air season AKA spring, blame it on whatever you want really, but here it is. I started writing this about two years ago, maybe? I can't really remember. My friend Suvi and I had this big project we wanted to work on together I would write the fanfic and she would make a fanvideo about it. Yeah, huge commitment as you can imagine, we were dead serious. Then the sixth season of Gossip Girl started and my devotion to this show grew smaller and smaller by the minute, until it reached the I-don't-give-a-fuq level around December 17****th**** 2012 (yes, I remember when the last episode ever aired. And you better not get me started on THAT). I was too hurt and disappointed by this show by then to keep my word and so I let Suvi down and bailed on this (but she made me watch Nashville in return and turned me into a frigging country show junkie, so let's call it even, shall we?). I was looking through my files on my computer and found this today. It was almost finished, I just retouched it here and there and in less than two hours it was done. I thought long and hard about posting it or just leave it to collect cybernetic dust on my computer, for all of 5minutes I pondered about it. The thing is, I don't need people to read it. I didn't write it for the readers or the fandom, I finished this little story for myself because as much as I resent and disavow this show, we're still not over. True I haven't watched an episode of Gossip Girl since that cold December day and true I change the channel everytime I happen to find it on tv with a loud "ewww!", but if finding this made me want to finish it…well it can only mean I still need closure. I've been in denial ever since it ended and although I moved on, reading parts of this brought back memories of happy times with my Rufly army. Also I kinda owe this to Suvi. So here it is, my last goodbye to Gossip Girl, my last goodbye to Rufus and Lily. I'm finally letting go and I'm glad I am doing so while trying to find a reasonable answer to that horrible finale. This is not a happy ending, it's just an ending and it's still better than what they gave us (anything would be, honestly).  
Okay, monologue over. Hope you enjoy it and farewell Gossip Girl I guess.**

Had I known the search for my Salvatore Ferragamo shoes would have led me here, I would have probably worn the Jimmy Choo stilettos Serena recommended me to use for this outfit. But here I am, with this old red box in my hands. And by all means I knew what I am about to put myself through by taking a peek inside the box. Do I want to walk down the memory lane? Do I want to take such a long free-fall dive? _No_ I repeat to myself as my fingertips lightly brush against the designer's name gold imprinting on the box. I couldn't endure the pain of letting nostalgia take over me. I've moved on and so has he.  
The lid is removed from the box without any second thought. The corner of my eye catches half of his smile in a picture of the two of us and my heart sinks in my stomach at once. Why am I doing this to myself is beyond me. I take the picture out and hold it in front of me. I didn't remember I put it away with its frame. I trace my fingers along his profile. His forehead leaning against my temple, his closed eyes framed by a series of little wrinkles. _Oh Rufus, how much time has passed._  
My eyes fix on his mouth and those beautiful lips of his manage to take my breath away again: their shape, their fullness, the way their corners twirl up in a smile, I loved everything about them. Ever so gentle on me, ever so possessive at the same time. I can feel the taste of his mouth in mine right now if I just close my eyes. I miss the soft roughness of their touch. Whether that mouth was used for talking or kissing or laughing, I'd be under its spell in the blink of an eye no matter what. We look happy in this picture and I think we were happy for a while. I know I was back then.  
I've always felt safe in his arms, the warmth of his embrace, the tightness of his grip on me, his musky scent invading my lungs, that sweet abandon I couldn't help but give in to whenever his arms were around me. I kind of miss it. I kind of miss him too. For a long time I thought we had it all. That we had made it.  
We never made a _"forever and always"_ pact or read to the other a _"till death us do part"_ vow at our wedding, but it felt as though we did somehow. I silently promised him to love and cherish him for the rest of my life the moment our eyes first met and I am keeping my promise to this day still. But I have come to understand that not all relationships are meant to last for a lifetime and we both know ours surely wasn't built to last.  
I take my part of responsibility for that: sometimes I pushed too hard, sometimes I pulled the plug too fast and other times I didn't try at all. But despite all the fights and the aching, I never stopped believing in an _us_. Until I realized that our _"us"_ could only live in a world that was too fragile to put up resistance to the real world we were forced to live in. Maybe I've wanted this far too much for far too long and ended up watching that young flame burn out too fast. I remember when we started reconnecting thanks to our kids or rather because of them. He came back into my life and suddenly everything got wondrously complicated and I hated him for that. I hated he had such a power over myself after all those years and I loved it at the very same time. His megawatt smile and small laugh were enough to make me forget all the years we spent apart. I started hoping again maybe there was still a chance for an _us_. My spiteful remarks about his wife leaving him, his witty jokes about my socialite status…I felt as though everything was falling into place again. I wanted to fight it, but I knew I couldn't resist the invisible force that was pulling me in once again.

_ "Just stay out of my life Rufus"_.

God knows I didn't mean any of those seven words. Sparks flew every time we were in the same room and it was hard to keep our hands off each other. The unbearable sexual tension, the desire, the want, the need even, it was all there. After almost 20 years. Time has the tendency to stop whenever Rufus Humphrey and I are in a room alone. Or at least it used to.  
He knocked the wind out of me the first time I ever laid eyes on him: guitar in hand, hair sticking to his sweaty forehead, worn out jeans and an old t-shirt. He sounded amazing and looked even more so. I was completely captured by that music and those green eyes. It didn't take long to fall madly in love with that boy, it took even less to fall in love with him all over again twenty years later.  
And yet here I am, with nothing but a box of memories and old pictures. My eyes land on a picture from our wedding, all the kids are in it. Even Scott. It feels like it was taken so long ago and it was just less than five years ago. Dan and Serena are now engaged, Chuck and Blair have become parents of a beautiful baby boy, Jenny is travelling the world making a name for herself in the fashion industry and my sweet Eric is graduating college this semester. I wish I knew more about Scott's life, he writes from time to time and calls on Christmas morning. I guess that's more than a woman who gave her first born up for adoption should ask for, but still.  
The box holds all kinds of Lincoln Hawk's memorabilia: cassettes, stickers, guitar picks and even autographs of each and every member of the band. Rufus' reads a simple

"_To my Lily, love Rufus_".

Simple like everything was back then. Back when our only worries concerned the stocks of booze in the tour bus minibar and condoms at the bottom of guitar cases; when it didn't matter if we were in the States or France or Holland or if the sun was shining bright or the sky was pouring down like a fountain; back when we were on the receiving end of the infamous "_they're just kids_". There was nothing complicated about us. We were just a young man and a young woman in love. I can't even remember when we became a broke gallerist and a serial divorcee socialite, but we have and that's all I know now.  
My eyes land on a _Murphy two for one Fridays_ napkin, I turn it around and recognize his scribble right away: _Romance novels, Sonoma Cabernets, Christmas tree ornaments…_and my lips break into a smile.

"_Things that make you happy or sad or crazy_" he'd said.

He might as well have written his name only on that napkin, it would have perfectly fitted all three categories. At the end of the day he's what makes me happy or sad or crazy, especially the latter. Or maybe I should say used to? _No_. He still makes me sad and he still makes me crazy, that hasn't changed really. And somehow he still makes me happy, if only through memories.  
I didn't remember stashing away so many pictures of us, I thought they'd magically disappeared from the shelves and the small tables and the bedside tables. But here they all are: our first Christmas together as a family, our summer vacation in Italy with Eric, our paper filled first wedding anniversary…It's bizarre how your whole life can be contained in a box. A shoe box to be precise. Years and years packed in a small carton box, like the life we shared was nothing important, nothing worth more than an empty shoe box.  
At the bottom I find my engagement ring. Not the pretty shiny one with the big rock on top of it. The real one. The Lincoln Hawk engagement ring. The one I didn't want to take off for a week and then, much to my despair, had to be replaced by the glamorous one after an encounter too many with the water in my shower. It's as awful as I remember it. I look down at my left hand and gently remove my wedding band and the emerald green engagement ring William has given me over a year ago. I slip the paper ring on and break down in tears as I held my hand up to admire that precious jewelry piece. I cry for him, I cry for me, I cry for _us_. For that _us_ that I will never have again. And I cry and cry because despite all the tears and the fights and the hurt and the break ups, my hope to see him showing up at my door was never torn apart. I still do hope to see him standing right in front of my Prada Marfa art piece, looking at me with his glossy green eyes, telling me we can live in our world because it's the only world that matters. We would erase that pain we put ourselves through with a kiss, as we did many times before. Because that's what we know how to do best: breaking up and making up. And it hurts to hold this hope of an _us_. And it hurts because I've held it within for so many years, I'm tired of hoping and dreaming about our life together, when we had already achieved that. It hurts all the more knowing that we finally had realized all our dreams and didn't take good care of our achievements, letting it all slip through our fingers without a care in the world. But what hurts the most is knowing that our love is not big enough, is not deep enough, is not strong enough. It never was and as much as I want to believe otherwise, it never will be. And I'll fight against myself for the rest of my life to get rid of this hope, to let it crush to the ground and shatter in a million pieces, just like my heart is right now. But I already know it's a battle I am not going to win, because that hope of living in our perfect little world is stronger than I am. Is stronger than he is. It's just bigger than us. That everlasting love that fuels that hope is simply too big for that little world we wanted to confine it in, but yet too little to tie such two different worlds like mine and his together.

I put everything back in the box and wipe away my tears with my fingertips, praying to God that new Lancôme waterproof mascara did its job dutifully. I take a last peek inside and let out a long sigh before I reapply the lid on the box and get up from the couch. I look down at my hand and notice my ring finger is still wrapped with that hideous paper ring and I laugh.

"_I'm just stuck with you, aren't I?"_


End file.
